1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates systems which assist users in making decisions based upon a user profile; and more particularly to systems which assist users in making complicated choices among a set of products in a product domain, such as purchasing a car, based upon user specified requirements and preferences for the product choice.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, considerable effort is being expended in the development of applications of computers in the marketing and distribution of consumer products. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,775,935 to Yourick; U.S. Pat. No. 5,041,972 to Frost; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,124,911 to Sack describe systems which process information about products that consumers choose in order to determine attributes of such products which are important in consumer decisions. These systems help producers to design products more likely to sell, and help marketers to understand which products to sell to what consumers. However, these products are not focused on assisting a consumer make a complicated product choice.
There is also a significant development in the field of decision-making systems. For example, U.S. Defensive Publication T998,008 by DeLano Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,426 to Burt; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,793 to Alexander et al. describe computer software based systems which provide tools in assisting a decision-making process. However, these systems do not provide a readily usable technique by which a profile of a user can be applied to the decision-making process in making intelligent choices.
Thus, although significant technology exists for applying computer systems to making decisions, there is a need for the application of such technology to resolving complex choices, such as consumer product choices which are based on unique profiles of the person making the choice, and to provide the results efficiently to the person. This need is particularly apparent in the field of consumer buying decisions tied to "big ticket" purchases that are traditionally provided through untrustworthy or biased sales channels. These big ticket purchases typically require the significant degree of analysis and logic, because of the large number of choices and the many variables that need to be considered in making the choice.